Not. One.
Most of L's medieval holdings are sparse. The diocesan archive at one point had mountains of documents dating back to the mid-12th century, but everything medieval and much else was destroyed in one of the wars that blew through here, and now their documents only go back to the mid-18th century. The other archives have the occasional register or bundle of parchments from my century, but I've got a project centered around a specific year, and there's almost nothing for that, other than a few documents of property sales or rentals (which might be fascinating for some projects, but not for mine).
I've spend a week here, and I've transcribed a total of three documents, all of them highly tangential to my project. But I had to do something, other than sitting here, wishing I'd spent the week in T. instead. Or even back in Blerg City.
So, what's the bright side?
- Well, now I've looked at all the archives in L. I know what is and isn't here, for future projects. Tomorrow I'm going to look at the one particularly rich collection they have for the era I tend to work on. It doesn't have anything for this project, but I want to know about it.
- The archivists have all been very nice and helpful.
- The paper I presented on Monday went well.
- I had to stay in a hotel, but it was inexpensive, and clean, and conveniently located.
- I only booked six days, rather than the ten days I originally had planned.
- There is a really good vegetarian restaurant in this town (in a country where it's hard to get a meat-free meal), and yesterday I had what may be the best salad I've ever eaten.
- I visited the one main medieval attraction, and because this is an out-of-the-way town, and because it was a weekday, I had the whole place to myself for long stretches of time.
- I've gotten to rest up a bit, to the point where I'm really, really eager to have some documents to dig into.
Please, please let there be documents for me to dig into.
4 comments:
Good luck!
Well, at least now you know, right? I'll have to remember that detail about the diocesan archive myself...
Well, it's better than a red hot poker in the eye.
Gawd that sounds dispiriting. On the other hand it also sounds like a war story to tell once the project is long done. I find that most misfortunes are story material once told with detachment, it's a kind of comfort.
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